Alternative Apocalypse (8)
Making Peace a Possibility
There are plenty of doomsday scenarios out there predicting that the end of life as we know it is not only near but inevitable. Dire omens are everywhere: from melting polar ice caps to hot wars around the globe to the eerie end of the Aztec calendar in 2012. At Raven our particular focus is on the risks posed by human violence and many of the scholars we talk to are pessimistic about the ability of humanity to forego violence in favor of peaceful coexistence. Their pessimism is due in large part to the technological reality that we now posses the ability to act on our violent desires and effect planet wide destruction, either through environmental catastrophe or nuclear devastation.
Will we destroy ourselves? At Raven we believe that the future is anything but certain. The choice is still before us and the decision facing us today was well framed thousands of years ago by the writer of Deuteronomy:
“… I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” (Deut. 30:19)
Here’s the problem: the death and the curses have certainly been set before us in no uncertain terms. The path to doomsday is well documented in the media, is a titillating part of the pop culture conversation and dramatized in sensational books and movies. On this page, we would like to document the path to life and blessings. We chose to call this blog Alternative Apocalypse because apocalypse is from the Greek word apokalyptein meaning to uncover or to reveal. So here we will reveal a path to life as real and possible as the path to destruction in order to give it voice for if the alternative to death is not heard as a real possibility, life hasn’t got a chance.
On this page we will be posting the signs and omens we find that offer an alternative apocalyptic vision of peace. We hope that these omens of hope will enter your conversations with your family and friends and that they will inspire you to see peace as a real possibility.
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Martin Luther King Jr. is a figure from the recent past who continues to stir our cultural imagination. Unfortunately, much of our culture has fallen away from King's message and succumbed to forms violence. Television, movies, music - it seems as though violence has become an accepted part of our culture. The violence modeled in our culture desensitizes us to our common humanity. Violence then becomes easier and easier to justify. Fortunately, King continues to model an alternative and provides the antidote to the contagion of violence in our culture. That antidote is love. In his book Strength to Love, King wrote apocalyptically about the decisions that face humanity. Either we will be consumed by a spirit of hate and destroy one another, or we will survive by the spirit of love that embraces even our enemies. King wrote:
Upheaval after upheaval has reminded us that modern man is traveling along a road called hate, in a journey that will bring us to destruction and damnation. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world. Jesus is not an impractical idealist: he is the practical realist. (49-50)
For more on King, click here: http://www.ravenfoundation.org/exemplars/martin-luther-king-jr
Suzanne discusses the impact protests are having on independently owned BP service stations.
Link to story on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127747890
Tripp Hudgins, a good friend and Board Member of the Raven Foundation, sent me an email yesterday concerning the oil spill in the gulf. He expressed concern that all of the resentment and anger directed at BP is not the solution to the problem and that BP is being scapegoated. In the email, he sent a link to an online petition called The BP Oil Spill: A Christian Call for Lament and Reconciliation. Here's a quote from the petition:
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
We mourn the human and animal lives lost, the economies and ecosystems destroyed, and the gifts of God, created from and for his love, squandered and poisoned. Most of all we mourn our complicity and active participation in an economy based on toxic energy that has made such death inevitable.
I love this quote. It avoids scapegoating BP and makes the point that we are all in this together. We are complicit and active participants in this oil spill. The problem is much bigger than BP. Our dependence on oil has made death inevitable. The problem is our cultural desire for convenience and efficiency over and against other humans and the environment.
Our culture likes to avoid the word "sin". It's an ugly word. Unfortunately, this oil spill forces us to acknowledge the ways in which so many of our individual and cultural practices lead to death and destruction. Ugly words are the best words to describe ugly situations that we have created. As the petition points out, the proper response to such a crisis resulting from our sins is lament, confession, and actively seeking reconciliation with God's good creation.
I encourage you to sign the petition. You can find it here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lamentbpoilspill/.
Dr. Gary Slutkin and the Great Chicago CeaseFire
Written by Adam Ericksen
A great video on the organization CeaseFire. The founder, Dr. Gary Slutkin, says, "Violence behaves like an infectious disease in every single way. We are applying exactly the methodology for controlling infectious diseases. CeaseFire engages the community to work with young people at high risk of being involved in violence, provides on-the-spot alternatives to shooting, and works to change social norms about gun violence."
Indeed, violence is a contagion. Dr. Slutkin is pointing to the cure.
Dr. Lederach helping to build peace.
Nonviolent Peaceforce is a federation of over 90 Member Organizations from around the world. In partnership with local groups, unarmed Nonviolent Peaceforce Field Team members apply proven strategies to protect human rights, deter violence, and help create space for local peacemakers to carry out their work. The mission of the Nonviolent Peaceforce is to build a trained, international civilian peaceforce committed to third-party nonviolent intervention.
- Desctiption from youtube.
My friends Michael McLean and John Batdorf wrote a musical video that John performs for an organization in L.A. called “Urban Compass working to stop youth violence.” The music video begins with an unsettling lyric: “There are refugees among us who are not from foreign shores” who are not making the headlines, who suffer unseen and untended to within our midst. Then statistics appear: Violence is the leading cause of death for young people in every major city and 80% of violence victims are between the ages of 18 and 24.
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